I am still trying to figure out a way, to adapt the VAT configuartion of
shopsite for the EU.
Background: In most EU countries, the merchant is required by law to quote
all prices that are accessible to the end consumer (so also prices in online
shops that are not password protected and for businesses only), incl. the
VAT valid for the country the merchant is selling in/from.
Example:
The price of one item shown is 10.00 Euro. The merchant is located in
Germany, this means this price breaks down to 8.62 Euro net + 16% VAT (1.38
Euro).
I have shopsite currently configured shopsite w/o tax feature and entered
all prices (and shipping charges) including the 16% VAT. So I am fulfilling
the "Preisangabeverordnung" (the law that requires me to quote including
VAT). I have included the information that all prices shown are incl. 16%
VAT in the general page footer.
As long as I do sell to end consumers within the EU, there is no problem.
Our shops is layouted completely in German language, so we do mainly sell to
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and sometimes
Italy, all EU countries -> no problem, VAT needs to be charged and included.
BUT, as there is a large population of german language (and very wealthy)
people in Switzerland, we do also sell to Switzerland. Switzerland is not
part of the EU and therefore the 16% VAT does not to be charged. Furthermore
we have an increased amount of sales to the US, as we offer very specific
spare parts for a technical diving apparatus that is manufactured by Draeger
here in Germany, and that is sold worldwide and where spare parts are hard
to come by. Again for those sales the VAT does not to be charged. (I am very
astonished how many US citizens do speak or at least read German well enough
to place orders in our shop).
Another scenario is where the customer is a business within the EU (outside
our country in this case Germany) and has an EU-VAT-ID number. In this case
we are allowed to deliver VAT free, as long as the other business does give
us their EU-VAT-ID number, the shipping address is not located within
Germany, but inside the EU and we quote the EU-VAT-ID on the invoice. We
need to monthly communicate such inner EU VAT-free deliveries to a central
database of the authorities.
Shopsite does offer the sales tax feature.
The sales tax feature does only allow to increase the amount of the subtotal
or the total based on a X % defined in the back office setting. This means
this is only good for net pricing for the products and the addition of a VAT
amount in the shopping cart. Does not work for us as merchant selling to end
consumers in the EU.
What we would need a functionality in the tax settings like that:
I am within the EU, the amount shown incl. 16% VAT; =16% -> Displays the
amount of 16% VAT without adding or substracting the value from the shopping
cart
I am outside the EU, substract 16% VAT;-16% ->
Calculates and displays the amount of 16% VAT and deducts it from the total
I have an EU-VAT-ID, substract 16% VAT;-16% -> Calculates and
displays the amount of 16% VAT and deducts it from the total
The 3rd option would need the customer a) to write his EU-VAT-ID in the
comments box of the shopping cart, or b) we do need to have in on file from
a previous order.
As shopsite cannot calculate as shown at the moment, all orders that are
submitted do include the full 16% VAT and I have put a lengthy explanation
that we will deduct the VAT if the shipping address is outside the EU or the
customer is a EU business outside Germany and has/will submit his EU-VAT-ID
number in the email receipt.
As long as I do not have a way to configure shopsite to deduct the VAT
amount, I will only be able to do only manual billing for the credit cards,
as I need issue an invoice w/o VAT using our invoicing program and then
punch in the amount due in our offline cc processor program.
I do see that shopsite is a mostly US used program (current tax feature, UPS
shipping rates calculation for the US, information and format of fields in
the check-out screen), and that is fine
. It is already more flexiblethan most of the shopping carts on the market in the EU. The fact that we
are running a german language online shop since 1999 using shopsite w/o
major problems shows that shopsite can be adopted to almost any scenario.
What we need now is a minor tweak for the tax feature, to make it even more
perfect.
Sorry for the long text. Even if you as reader are located in the US and do
not need that specific VAT feature, at least you know now that if you are
coming to visit Europe, prices in supermarket, cafes and for post-cards do
already include VAT
Best regards,
Niko